The bustle about the palace gates was unusual, for the Lords of the Privy Council were assembled in the Parliament hall, and Mary was seated on the throne.
Into that magnificent apartment, which measures a hundred feet in length by thirty in breadth, and which had a roof nearly forty feet in height, light was admitted by two rows of arched windows, between each of which projected a double tier of beautiful corbels, the lower upholding a line of statues--the upper sustaining the ceiling of elaborate oak, which sprung away aloft into intricacy and brown obscurity. A vast fireplace yawned at one end; it was supported by four gothic columns, clustered and capitalled with the richest embossage.
The young King Henry, a tall and handsome, but pale and beardless youth, whose effeminate aspect contrasted strongly with those of the mustached and sunburned lords of the council, sat on the Queen's left hand. His face was a perfect oval, and his eyes were dark like his hair, which was short and curly. His attire was fashioned in the extreme of gorgeous extravagance; the sleeves and breast of his blue satin doublet being loaded with lace and precious stones. He had nothing military about him save a small walking-sword, for arms were not King Henry's forte, which was quite enough to make the Scots heartily despise him.
A long career of debauchery, drinking, and excess, had ruined his constitution, and now a pallor like unto that of death was visible in his hollow cheek and lustreless eye; and as he lounged back in his cushioned seat, much more interested in flirting with the maids of honour than listening to affairs debated by the council, he had all the aspect of the prematurely worn out man of pleasure--the satiated _roué_--the _ennuyée_, whom the slightest exertion of mind or body was sufficient to bore to death. Mary, disgusted by his daily excesses, which shocked her delicacy and wounded her pride, had long since ceased to love him, and had learned to deplore that alliance which youthful inclination, and the ardour of her impulsive nature, rather than the dictates of prudence, had led her to form; when from among all her suitors, many of whom were the sons of kings--the Archduke of Austria, Don Carlos of Spain, and others--she, the most beautiful woman in Europe, she, whose genius equalled her beauty, and whose piety equalled her genius, preferred the worthless heir of the exiled house of Lennox! This ill-fated marriage began the long series of those disastrous events which ended in the towers of Fotheringay; but who then, when Mary was seated on the throne of a hundred kings, in the palace of her fathers, with the crown of Bruce, the sceptre of James V., and the consecrated sword of Pope Julius before her, could have foreseen that dark hour of humiliation and of death?
